


Geode World, Gentle Stars

by jrdexex



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Adult Time!, M/M, Post- Future Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-03-11 09:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13521399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jrdexex/pseuds/jrdexex
Summary: Professor Shiota has always kept both of his blades sharp in teaching and assassination, while Akabane’s been ruthlessly climbing the government ladder. The paths of the two brightest assassins have greatly diverged, and once best-friends are now somewhat-strangers. But... the life-changing assassination classroom has left a friend group that both of them can always rely on. Especially now that Shiota’s moving into Tokyo and, as it happens, Akabane is in desperate need of a new roommate.





	1. Chapter 1

“Nagisa!” Karma opens his door wide to the new visitor who had just rung up. He smiles, hiding the irritation of a man who had been stuck carrying boxes in by himself, as Shiota’s moving truck had arrived early. It was just...fair to take a peek inside both Nagisa’s cardboard boxes and other ones shaped suspiciously. It was almost like they held katanas, guns, and ammo. Who was Karma kidding? They definitely did, and he was dying to know. His smile widens, sharp teeth bared like some hungry ferocious tiger.  
“It’s been too long! Come in, come in. Your boxes are here already, so you are already at home.”

“Thank you,” Nagisa says, ever polite. He bows, hiding his confusion. Karma, or, as he currently thought of him, Akabane, had certainly changed. Politeness wasn’t his hallmark in junior high, and he had been close enough during high school to hear of the fights he had gotten in with the former principal’s son.

Karma feels a familiar twinge of distrust. “...So tell me,” He says, gracefully ushering in the much shorter Nagisa to his sparse living room, “You moving to Tokyo—That’s unexpected.”

“I hope it is no trouble,” Nagisa says, then stumbles after he was about to say Akabane, quickly replacing it with, “A-Karma..”

“Of course not!” Karma says, charming as he has been from the second Nagisa walked in. It almost like he predicted what the other was going to say, and cuts him off to reassure him. Nagisa is starting to get nervous, and Karma notices. Nagisa’s hands are laced together, knuckles white with tense gripping.

“I appreciate you getting my boxes. I’m s—“  
“Yeah,” Karma interrupts. “It's fine.” Before Nagisa apologizes, he waves him off. “Just sit down already and drink the damn tea. Driving that long’s a bitch, and you look frazzled.”  
Shiota takes the drink and sips, sitting. He takes the time to look at Karma. He’s so tall. He has also learned social graces, which he never thought was possible. Just another skill to master to get ahead and win, he concludes mentally, going by Karma’s previous logic. It is a mean cup of tea, and Nagisa is calmed by it. He smiles at the thought— _I have destined to become the kooky tea drinking uncle since the day I was born._

Karma, too, takes the time to size Nagisa up.  _It's been, what, eight years since I last saw him? He's certainly gotten a little taller. Maybe a few centimeters, but still almost the same height as junior high. His face looks older, though. I can see a few smile lines, and it certainly looks like he's been training, although I can't tell for sure how much underneath his baggy travel clothes._

"How is teaching?" He asks after Nagisa finishes the black tea. 

"...Fine." Nagisa seems to snap this word a little, then take it back as he continues in a nicer tone, "I mean.. I left.." He finishes with an uncomfortable smile. 

Karma wants to push it but thinks better of that, and nods. "Mph." He agrees and changes the subject. "I have a meeting I have to get to soon. Unofficial, but important. I need to get a handle of this new... colleague I have, and I planned lunch before work today."

"Your work starts late, huh..?" Nagisa says, head tilting slightly to the side. The question is gently asked, but Karma feels something lurking underneath the surface, like some sea monster readying to surface, just when the prey gets tired of swimming.

Karma smirks. "It's a special job."


	2. Chapter 2

“...long day?” Nagisa says softly. Karma looks frazzled, hands clenching at his sides sporadically.

“You could say that.” He replies in a clipped tone, jumping on the couch and stretching out to take up the entire length of it. The small TV, (not often on in Karma’s overworked schedule) is playing a foreign baking show. “Still maintaining your English…?” He asks, glancing behind him at Nagisa. He's sitting at a small chair with his feet propped up on the coffee table.

“Of course.” Nagisa says with a small nod, replying in remarkably good English. He does not mention he also has a good handle on French, Russian, and Chinese. “I still talk to Professor Bitch.” He adds.

“Hah.” Karma coughs, then switches back to Japanese, “..I’ve only acquired more Japanese government jargon.” Without a warning, he kicks Nagisa’s feet off the coffee table, and with his resulting tumble, Nagisa falls off of the chair and onto the ground. Nagisa’s loosely tied long hair comes untied and he lets out a surprised gasp.

“Karma--what--?” He says with a frown.

“..no feet on the coffee table.” Karma has a small smile on his face before he turns away to look out the window. Nagisa rubs his forehead and sighs, sitting on the floor. He leaned his back against the wicker bottom part of the chair, eyes focusing back on the TV screen, where he watches the judges eat the contestant's food. As Karma had the misfortune to learn, Nagisa had no talent in cooking. In the week that they had lived together, Nagisa had managed to almost burn the apartment down, _and_ flood it. They had shared a few laughs about how Nagisa had managed to burn water, and those disasters had gotten them to relax a bit more around each other. Karma tunes out the English of the speakers, as he looks at the moon. He remembers his first and only visit to space…

* * *

 "Hey, Karma, wake up." Karma's startled by Nagisa's hand on his arm.

"What?"

"You--" Karma figures out what's going on, and is flustered enough by his dream to hurridly force Nagisa's arm off and head to some privacy. He interrupts Nagisa's explaination and says, "Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll go get a shower. How late am I going to be?"

"Um.." Nagisa doesn't really know how long it takes for Karma to go to work, but its definately not early enough for him to be early. 

"Fuck." He says succinctly, under his breath. He locks the bathroom door, and splashes water on his red face. He takes a shower, forcing himself to try and forget his dream, but he can't. It was a small memory that he hadn't talked to anyone about. He dresses and runs out the door, ignoring Nagisa's small bento box that he tried to offer to Karma.

Karma sprints to the nearby subway station, and gets on the wrong train. He notices this after a minute, and mutters a swear. After he figures out where to go, to try and get to work on time, he notices something very wrong happening. A small high school girl is getting groped by a nearby passanger. Already irritated, Karma's not about to let this pass. He grabs the man's arm and snarls, "Get away from my girlfriend. Now." The man wisely backs down, looking away and muttering something about "accidents".

"Don't let an 'accident' happen again, ever. Or I'll find. You." Karma's taller than most, with a nasty glint in his eye, and his healthy desire to choke the life out of this guy carries the message better than words did.

Karma pulls the blue haired girl by the hand, pulling her through the crowded car out of his sight. She looks confused, but relieved.

"Next time don't just let him do that." Karma snaps. None of his female classmates in Class E would have, and this girl had no excuse. "Scream, punch him. Cause a scene. Nobody _decent_ would get you in trouble."

"Y-yes, sir.." She says timidly. _So like Nagisa, but without the danger.._

"Akabane Karma. Please vote for me when you can." He gives her his business card.

"Huh? Oh, okay. Yes, of course. Thank you so much for saving me. My name is Kawahara Kin, I won't forget this."

 _Kawahara, huh? This detour hasn't been an utter waste._ "No problem," He says with a smile.

* * *

This is a problem. Nagisa hadn't fully thought this through. The past week he had been at his computer, agressively refreshing his email page, waiting for anyone to respond to give him a job. He had only had summer jobs during high school, and his mother had helped support him as he went through school for teaching, and he had immediately dove into teaching after that, with the same job. Looking for jobs when he didn't have much experience in anything but teaching was hard.

Now that he had finally gotten one, he had definately made a mess. Karma was definately going to notice the cleaning smells of the room, if nothing else. Nagisa had had to reorganize the living room to cover up the damage to the wall. At least he had gotten rid of the body, and better yet... He could pay rent without depleting his savings.

He hums as he makes dinner for both of them. There was no use worrying about this now. He just needed to think of a plan to distract Karma from the changes in the house until he could get the wall fixed and the smell of Lysol out of the apartment. He has a good three hours to think about it, which is more than enough time...

 


	3. Chapter 3

"It's national cupcake day!" Nagisa says, smiling as Karma enters the apartment. He's in the middle of cooking, and he only glances behind his shoulder at Karma. Surprisingly, it is going quite well. The smell of vanilla is immediately smacks Karma in the face. He wrinkles his nose, but notices that Nagisa's recently cleaned up a vanilla smell, as he opens the trash can to throw away his cigarette. 

"How..sweet of you." He says with a slightly sarcastic tone.

"I'm fundraising!" Nagisa's long hair is under a bandanna, swishing around rather prettily as he hurries around the room as he decorates cupcakes and stirs batter.

There's a small lick of batter right on Nagisa's cheek, and Karma swipes it quickly off with a finger, then comments, "Its a bit late for that, Nagisa. National Cupcake Day's almost over."

_You do realize that it is only an American holiday, Nagisa, right? And no one knows it except culinary ex-pats and foreign television nerds like you, and by extension, me._

"It is for tomorrow. Miss Kagari," He pauses at Karma's slight frown and eyebrow raised in a dissaproving question, "You know, our neighbor. She's a single mother."

"..Yes," Karma lies, to prevent from learning unnecessary information about said unmemorable neighbor. Miss Kagari, in reality, was not memorable to Karma, simply because she was not his neighbor.

"Well, she needed to bring something for an event, but wanted it to be homemade. I offered my help, and she offered me some money and help with an interview!"

"Oh, good. I hope you get a job soon." _You can pay your half of the rent without going into your savings._ Karma thinks. He quickly sticks his finger in his mouth. The batter is nice, but not too sweet. "Let me get that," He says, shrugging off his dark blazer and taking the batter that Nagisa had abandoned stirring. 

* * *

Karma yawns, stretching out on the floor and letting his gaze stray from the muted but enthusiastic American eater, and back to his half-cupcake. It was a little burnt at the edge, and he had insisted on splitting it with Nagisa. 

 _I swear, if you want to think any more about that stupid indirect kiss, I'm going to kill you._ Karma's mind hisses at itself. _What are you, ten_ _? You've had the real thing!_

Karma stubbornly takes a bite of the cupcake and tries to think about anything else. Nagisa was sleeping. He had a bit of icing on the corner of his mouth, and it was frustrating, not being able to get it off. Nagisa was a light sleeper, so if he was touched or heard something, he would wake up. Karma had learned this fact the hard way.

Karma muffles a groan in his hand, rolling his eyes.

"You just broke up with your fiancee!" He angrily mutters to himself. "Isn't this a little fast?" He pinches his cheek. He cringes, slowly crawling on the recently-cleaned living room carpet, and tip-toing to his room. He leans on the door frame, and smiles as he looks at Nagisa. Karma touches his lips, and closes his eyes for a moment. The light pressure reminds him of a kiss--the kiss.

Karma stops looking out into the living room, and shuts the door to his room.

_Get a grip. You're just lonely. You have work to do.  
_

Karma sits down at his small desk, and opens his computer, logging in to his government agency's account. He scrolls through potential agent dossiers, rather uninterested. He stops at one, eyes widening and mouth dry.

A picture of Nagisa stares back at him. Instead of scrolling down to see Nagisa's "Bio", he closes the window.

_What has he been doing to get on that list?_

_Do I want to know?_


	4. Chapter 4

_No. Of course, I don't want to know._  
Karma tells himself, trying to forget what little he had seen. He winces a bit, covering his face with his hands. Nagisa didn't say anything about.. that.   
  
_It was probably something out of context. Stop thinking about it already._ It's _not like you're close to him or anything._  
  
Karma gets up and walks out of the room. He lets his bare feet walk on the carpets of the apartment building, and lead him to the balcony. He takes off his jacket, and puffs a cigarette, trying to relax. He shuts his eyes and just misses the streak of light across the sky.

* * *

  
"Good morning, students!" Bright blue eyes and a wide smile greet the well-groomed students. The first week of class would pass, and their enthusiasm would wane, for now, the room bubbles with quiet conversation after a quick polite group reply.   
  
"I swear, you said he was a she.. The new teacher is a guy." Kagari, yellow-haired and suspicious, mutters to her friend, teeth gritted together. She's sitting in the front row, and quickly whispers this when the new teacher wasn't looking

  
"Excuse me for seeing long hair and small hips and assuming!" Sakamoto, who has clearly not gotten enough sleep, snaps. She has unornimented dark blue hair and an almost out of regulation uniform that looks wrinkled.

Looking at the back of the room, two troublemaking boys make a racket.  
"I think he's cute, he's got such big eyes," Ikeda says. He's got a smirk playing across his face as he teases his friend. He leans back in his chair, letting the wall hold him steady.

  
"Gross!" Kouki, sitting next to his best friend, barely restrains himself from smacking Ikeda. A flash of jealousy passes through his face, but he shrugs it off, rolling his eyes in exasperation. He lightly tosses his soccer ball at Ikeda's face. Ikeda yelps and settles down. Moving to the middle of the room, quiet students begin to chat, for once, ignoring the teacher.  
  
"I think I'm going to like him, he seems really nice!" A nice looking student, Hibiki Kondo, smiles. She's sitting in the middle of the classroom, rose eyes taking in all of the noise.

  
"A nice change from last year. I hope he doesn't come back." A sour looking student, Airi Ito, says bitterly.

  
"They should have fired him. At least a newbie is better than a--" A normally quiet student, Sugimoto leans in to contribute. He leans in, not realizing who the blond student in front of them was.

  
"--Don't say that!" Hibiki demands.

  
"Kagari's right _there_." Airi hisses. Sugimoto stares, disbelieving.

"She came _back?_ "  
  
The class gradually drops their conversation as they collectively begin to notice their teacher, who is paitently watching and listening to them.   
"Are you all caught up, class?" His voice is gentle, but just by looking at him, the class doesn't want to mess with him on his first day. He looks unshakable and relaxed.   
Silence, then nervous nods.

Airi Ito mouths, " I completely forgot he was there..." to Sugimoto. The other nods enthusiastically.  
  
"Its the first day of school. A lot of the teachers here will be giving out syllabi and letting you know about the course requirements. I believe that all of you can read. Miss. . . Ito. Please pass these out to your classmates."

Visibly surprised, she obeys.  
  
"Thank you. Everyone, this is my first year teaching..." Nagisa says, with a pause for effect, then continues. "Throw anything you want at me. I'll be able to handle it. I hope you all have had lovely summers. I hope that this school year will be a productive one. As such, there will be a test this friday. I have done my best to stagger my tests so that they will avoid conficting with others. Because of this, I hope you will understand and study hard. Next week will be easier. Please feel free to take the rest of this period to talk, read your syllabi or start the reading homework due tomorrow morning."  
  


Sakamoto puts her hands to her face quietly groaning and smudging her glasses. _This year was going to be_ _wonderful. I can see how much I'm going to spend on instant-coffee already,_ she thought sarcastically.

* * *

 

Kin Kawahara was singing in a karaoke bar, face flushed with a bit too much sake. 

"As long as you're right here next to me... Everything's gonna be alright," She slurs, giggling at trying to reproduce a southern twang. She was, unlike the morning before, in safe company. Her friends, her older brother, and boyfriend were all with her, in a private room.

"You're right.." She says, breaking away from the music to look at her older brother, who's also slightly red. "I feel much better now."

He laughs, clearly more used to this than she was, and pats her on the back. "I would say 'I told you so', but I'm a nice guy. I'll get you a cookie."

"Cookie..." Kin frowns. "Noo...I'll be fat. It's okay.." She slurs slightly, glancing at her boyfriend.

Her brother glowers at the apparent cause of the cookie refusal, and sighs. He flips on his phone, reviewing the social media posts of the day. His frown deepens at a post he had already seen. _Whoever this Akabane political character was, he really thought he was a tool. 'Vote for me, I saved you from a groper' was tactless. His sister was far too trusting. For that matter, he thought, so were his parents._

An even darker thought whirled through his mind. _If Akabane had set it up for this exact result..._ _Politicians aren't to be trusted. This Akabane guy needed to stay the hell away from his family._

His mouth twitches in irritation. _But first, this asshole._ He smiles and waves Kin's boyfriend closer. The singer finishes his song to the silent irritation of the smiling brother.

 _Pride before fall,_ He thinks, hiding the protective rage underneath the toothy grin.

 


End file.
